TOBACCO CHEWING AND CLEANLINESS 45 



A few years ago those who used tobacco were a 

 nuisance everywhere. No law had been made to check 

 them, and people who wanted to keep clean put spittoons 

 in every public place, in railroad stations and business 

 places, in beautiful homes, in the House of Representa- 

 tives, in the courthouse where the judge sat, and in the 

 jail where the prisoner went. There were spittoons all 

 over America, and every one of them was untidy; yet 

 for years this was all that could be done. 



Some people do not understand why you and I object 

 to their use of tobacco and they think that if they need to 

 empty their mouths very often, we should not try to stop 

 them. The truth is that we object to the man and to 

 what he does because we cannot keep the air clean when 

 he is around. 



Our chapter on Dust and Cleanliness explained this. 

 Often a spittoon is tipped over, and what is left on the 

 floor dries after a while. It is trampled on, turned to 

 powder, blown into the air, and you and I cannot help 

 ourselves ; we have to breathe it. We have to take into 

 our clean lungs the dried tobacco juice that has come 

 from the mouth of the unclean tobacco chewer. 



At last, however, some cities have passed laws against 

 spitting. Better yet, these laws are printed in large 

 letters and pasted up in railroad stations and in electric 

 cars, so that now people cannot empty their mouths 

 everywhere whenever they please. In New York City 



